A valuable resource for genealogists and maritime historians alike has recently been made available on-line on the Library’s Full Catalogue. The Aberystwyth Shipping Records contain crew accounts and agreements (generally known as crew lists) and logbooks, together with associated papers and correspondence, 1856-1914, for 544 merchant vessels registered at the port of Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire. Included are ships confined to British coastal waters, together with vessels carrying cargo to all parts of the world. The records have been arranged alphabetically by each vessel with associated crew lists and logbooks arranged chronologically.

Edith Eleanor (Neapolitan school). Agreements for this top sail schooner, the last to be built in Aberystwyth, are included among the Aberystwyth Shipping Records.

In addition to listing the crew on each separate voyage, the crew lists contain details as to their age and place of birth, home address, previous vessel on which they served, date of leaving their present ship, in what capacity they were employed, together with reasons for leaving, if relevant. The official logbooks kept by the ship’s master record accidents, illnesses, birth or death on board, misconduct, deserters, punishment, and other entries relevant to the conduct of crew members – for example, skulduggery on board the ship Lovina in July 1867 is recorded in an entry relating to John Nicholson, aged 37, a cook from London, who threatened the captain and other crew members with murder and mutiny were he not discharged at Cagliari.

The harsh realities of life on the ocean waves are brought into stark relief in entries recording the death of individuals and the fate of vessels shipwrecked or lost at sea. From accidents on board ship (e.g. Thomas Oliver Jones from Aberystwyth, master of the ship Ellen Beatrice, who died at Cowes ‘by an iron hook falling on his head, from the boom, whil[st] in collision with ketch Alford’, 1910); to drowning at sea (e.g. John H. Jones, aged 15 from Borth, Cardiganshire, who fell overboard and was lost off Dover, 1886, or the crew of the vessel Maelota, lost with all hands in Holyhead Bay on passage from Dublin to Swansea, 1883); and crew members succumbing to illnesses and diseases on distant shores (e.g. John Owen, aged 21, of Blaenau Ffestiniog, who died in 1909 of typhoid in Genitschesk [Ukraine], John Thomas, apprentice, who died in hospital at Santos, Brazil, of yellow fever, 1877, or Samuel Morris, aged 28, of Cardigan, who died of leprosy at Rangoon, 1868), the fate, often tragic, of individuals and ships can be traced from one voyage to the next over several decades. Whilst children from the age of 12 onwards are often listed as crew members, Evan Davies, 9 years old, from Llansanffraid, Cardiganshire, included in 1857 as a crew member on board the vessel Ellen (‘this being his first ship’), is surely the youngest crew member listed among the records.

Names and signatures of ten Chinese crew members on board the vessel Adela S. Hills bound from Liverpool to Nagapattinam, India, 1876.

A volunteering project to transcribe available information relating to all crew members on ships registered at Aberystwyth is now underway at the Library. The end product will comprise a searchable database containing thousands of names of crew members, ships and ports, both in the UK and abroad. For more information, or to register an interest, please contact:
Gwyneth Davies, Volunteers’ Co-ordinator
Phone: 01970 632991
E-mail: gwd@llgc.org.uk

Alwyn J. Roberts

This month sees the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first part of a report into the state of Britain’s railways written by Richard Beeching and commonly called the Beeching Report. This report called for a drastic reduction in the size of the British Railway system and the ‘Beeching Axe’ fell heavily on parts of Wales.

The picture here is of an enamelled metal network map of the Great Western Railway, such as would have appeared on the walls of many station buildings before the Second World War. It shows the network at its zenith before the ravages of war, economic decline and competition from road transport lead to the demise of many of the smaller branch lines.

A case in point is the Carmarthen to Aberystwyth line, which formed a link between South & North Wales in the West. Since the line closed in the 1960s it has been necessary to cross into England in order to travel from North to South Wales by rail.

The line suffered during the war when rolling stock and heavy loads (such as tanks) were carried over bridges not designed for the weight. The weakened bridges were not considered economical to repair or replace and further damage due to flooding caused the Northern part of the line to be closed at the end of 1964 and the Southern part closed to passengers in early 1965, though freight traffic continued on part of the line until 1973.

Many people have called for the line to be reopened; but while parts of the line have reopened as a heritage railway other parts have been lost to development.

The National Library has a key role in preserving information about the history of railways in Wales; we hold a large collection of maps and plans showing routes and detailed track plans and sections of proposed and actual railways as well as designs for buildings, bridges and even rolling stock. The collection is especially good for Northeast Wales and Central Wales, but has examples covering the whole country. We are continually adding to the collection and hope to receive a large amount of new material in coming years.

Huw Thomas

Last month saw the two-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Whilst Austen (1775-1817) is surely as popular in Wales as elsewhere, it’s fair to say her Welsh connections are few and far between. Therefore it was a nice and unexpected surprise, when cataloguing a manuscript recently, to stumble upon its writer’s connection with one of the most famous authors in the English language.

The manuscript in question, NLW MS 24023A, is a journal of a picturesque tour in the summer of 1812, mainly through Wales and parts of Ireland. Amongst its quite detailed and lengthy entries are descriptions of the sights of the lower Wye valley and the journey up through Wales to Holyhead, then onwards from Dublin to Killarney and its lakes.

The author of the journal doesn’t name himself at any point in the volume. However there are enough clues – his initials, mentions of friends and family (his travelling companion is his brother Maximilian), references to Kent and Harrow – to allow one to work out his identity after a bit of research. He was William Osmund Hammond (1790-1863) of St. Alban’s Court, Nonington, Kent.

St Alban’s Court is barely a mile from Goodnestone, the family home of Elizabeth Bridges (1773-1808) – wife of Jane Austen’s brother Edward (1767-1852) – and not far from Edward’s main estate at Godmersham Park. Both are places Austen visited often over the years. The Hammonds and their friends and neighbours the Plumptres of Fredville (who have a cameo appearance in the journal, following a chance meeting in Cheltenham) were part of the Kent county society that Austen knew well.

Austen mentions William Hammond, in passing, a grand total of twice in her surviving letters (see Jane Austen’s Letters, ed. by Deirde Le Faye, 4th edn (Oxford, 2011)). Discussing a concert in her letter of 6 November 1813, she writes ‘The Faggs & the Hammonds were there, Wm Hammond the only young Man of renown’ (Letters, p. 262). It’s good to know that the impression made by the author of our journal, such as it was, seems at least to have been favourable.

Rhys M. Jones

Two Library volunteers describe their recent experience of working as trained demonstrators during guided-tours of the Conservation Studio, where the medieval Boston Manuscript, purchased with HLF funding, is in the process of being re-bound:

Sam Shaw:
“When the project with the tours opened up I was incredibly excited. This was a chance to do something really exciting and incredibly rare and unique. The experience was fantastic. The master class in handling manuscripts was so useful, not only to the task at hand but also in gaining skills to aid me in the pursuit of a career working within museums, hopefully with more objects such as the Boston Manuscript.”

Kat Donohue:
“Having the rare opportunity to volunteer on the Boston Manuscript project at the NLW is an experience I will never forget. From the training day right up to the end of the tour I was involved in, everything was extremely exciting. Of course there were nerves when it came to handling pages of the manuscript itself, but they soon vanished as I enjoyed showing members of the public one of the best pieces of Welsh history.”

Entrusted with the care of the original manuscript, both volunteers worked with Library staff to present the story of the volume’s history, and its consolidation and repair within recent months:

Kat Donohue:
“I have definitely learned a number of new skills, including how to handle rare documents and some preservation methods, and I hope to carry these skills with me to further my career in archiving and the conservation/preservation of rare documents. I would like to thank the NLW and it’s staff for giving me this amazing opportunity.”

Sam Shaw:
“The tour itself was exciting to say the least. This opportunity was incredible and I am truly grateful for the opportunity.”

Current volunteering opportunities are advertised on the National Library’s webpage.